Amazon: Barclays Cuts Kindle, Kindle Fire Estimates

By Tiernan Ray

Barclays Capital’s Anthony DiClemente today reiterates an Equal Weight rating on shares of Amazon.com (AMZN), while cutting his estimates for the company’s sales of Kindle e-book reader and Kindle Fire tablet computer, reflecting increased competition in tablets and a longer wait time for a revamp of the Fire.

DiClemente cut his Kindle Fire estimate for this year from 18.4 million units to 17.1 million, and cut his estimate for the Kindle reader sales to 18.4 million from 23.8 million units. DiClemente sees Amazon facing stiffer competition in the form of the $199 8-gigabyte model of Barnes & Noble’s (BKS) “Nook Tablet,” introduced Tuesday.

He also thinks it will be Amazon won’t revamp the Fire until the second half of this year, when it may also introduce a 9-inch version of the device.

DiClemente also now thinks Amazon sold fewer Fires in the fourth quarter than previously imagined: he now models the company having shipped 5 million units versus 5.5 million previously, which he now says was “too aggressive”:

(Amazon noted on its 4Q11 earnings call that it recorded 177% growth in sales of its total Kindle family for the nine-week holiday period ending 12/31 versus the same period last year. Extrapolating for the entire quarter and benchmarking against our 4Q10 estimate of ~3.4 million Kindles sold, this would indicate ~9.5 million total Kindles sold in 4Q11. Subtracting our new 4.3 million Kindle eReader estimate from ~9.5 million total Kindles sold in 4Q11 would imply ~5 million Kindle Fire Tablets sold in the quarter. ) Third party data helps us triangulate on this number as IHS estimates AMZN sold 3.9M Fires, while DisplaySearch estimates the supply chain shipped 6M Fire units in 4Q11.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.